We’re rock’s rebel tribe!
The shocking truth about Frankie and Co
IF BOY GEORGE is the pop star the mums adore, Frankie Goes To Hollywood has to be the band they hate.
For, as George goes on and on becoming cuddlier and cuddlier, Frankie just grow more fearsome and nasty.
Their first single, Relax, was banned from Top Of The Pops and Radio One when it was discovered that it was al1 about the joys of gay love-making.
Nevertheless, it is still at Number 11 in the charts after 32 weeks and it has sold more copies in this country than any record by Boy George.
Now the hideously violent video for their new single, Two Tribes, has been banned by the BBC and relegated to an after-midnight spot by Channel Four.
Yet that hasn’t stopped the single rocketing straight to Number One in the charts, selling half a million copies and gaining a gold disc —
Paul Rutherford, 24, one of the band’s two singers, says; “I think everyone wanted us to win after that silly ban on Relax.
Silly
“People are quite sophisticated and I think it made us look a bit like Robin Hood battling against the sheriff of Nottingham because the BBC acted in such a silly way.
“I think being banned certainly helped us. Of course Relax stands up on its own as a good record or it wouldn’t be going back up the charts.
“Maybe we are now seen as being dangerous. But I think mainly people can see we are being honest. There is not much bull from us.
“We are five ordinary lads from Liverpool. We tell it like it is and people can see that.”
For the moment the band have enough worries on their hands over the banning of their video for Two Tribes.
The film shows actors made up to look like the American President Reagan and the Soviet President Chernenko slugging one another in a bloody and dirty fist fight.
Blood squirts on to the screen, the presidents kick one another when they are down. Finally they resort to all-out nuc1ear war, blasting the world to smithereens.
Holly Johnson, Frankie’s second singer, says: “I wrote the song during the Falklands crisis.
“I was really worried that we were all going to be drafted. It all seemed such a pointless war. It was just a political war.
Huge
“But I’m not really making a political statement with the record. The song can be interpreted as being about any two tribes —
“We just chose Russia and America for the video as an illustration of the biggest two tribes.”
Paul says: “We are all in the middle of someone else’s argument, that is what we are trying to say with the video. We are not that involved in this huge fight, it is all done over our heads.
“But those powerful people shouldn’t have the audacity to treat us like that. What we are trying to say is, ‘Listen, give us a chance, we don’t want to die.’
“It should be shown also simply because —
“It’s 1984 and someone has got to say something loud.”
In many ways the intense rivalry between Frankie and Culture Club echoes that between The Rolling Stones and The Beatles in their early days.
The Beatles started out as outlaws. But, as soon as they became lovable mop-tops and parents started to like them, rebellious young people turned to the Stones because they were so uncompromisingly nasty.
Threat
“I think George must think we are the biggest threat to him now,” Paul says.
“He keeps writing letters to music papers saying what awful people we are.
“We don’t know why he’s like that. He’s obviously hurt in some way, but I think it all seems to be getting the better of the poor lad.
“He has started slagging everyone down as though he’s commandeered the whole music business. I’ve heard he’s a lonely chap and he certainly seems to have started acting very strangely.
“I’d just like to meet him sometime without all his heavies so I could talk with him about everything.”
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